EIF avails N$100 million for climate change proposals

Individuals who are entrepreneurially inclined, as well as community-based organisations operating conservancies and forests, are being encouraged to apply for grants from the N$100-million Environmental Investment Fund (EIF).

Proposals that will receive the fund's attention are those that aim at addressing climate change problems in the country.

Namibia secured the funds from the Green Climate Fund (GCF) in October 2016. Applicants for these funds must be operating within the Community Based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM) sector in Namibia.

This is because the funds particularly seek to deliver funding directly to duly gazetted communal conservancies and community forests.

According to the Minister of Environment and Tourism, Pohamba Shifeta, through this grant facility the EIF intends to invest up to US$8 million (an estimated N$100 million) into 33 proposals from successful applicants who come up with solution ideas on addressing climate change problems. The climate change problems include climate-resilient agriculture, climate-proof infrastructure and ecosystem-based adaptations.

The projects are expected to build the resilience of more than 76,000 people living in climate change-prone areas, Shifeta said.

Shifeta said individual grants will range from about N$1.2 million to N$5.3 million, depending on the exchange rate between the Namibia dollar and US dollar at the time of the award, while project duration can range from as short as six months up to a maximum of three years.

Last year, August 30, in the presence of the Green Climate Fund Secretariat and Deputy Prime Minister Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah, Shifeta launched two national climate adaptation projects that will have significant impacts on the livelihoods of Namibians living in both crop-growing areas and (CBNRM EDA) areas of the country.

At the launch, Shifeta emphasised the importance of climate interventions for the country's sustainable development and the need to implement the approved projects with a sense of urgency and operational efficiency.

It is against this backdrop that Shifeta on Monday launched an important component of one of the projects � the Empower to Adapt: Creating Climate Change Resilient Livelihoods through CBNRM EDA Project.

The component makes provision for a grant facility, fully funded by the GFC through the EIF of Namibia, for which the first Call for Proposals Shifeta announced yesterday.

He said the funding, secured through GCF's Enhanced Direct Access (EDA) modality, is ring-fenced for investment into community-level climate change adaptation activities through community-based organisations.

The intention with this funding is to enable the CBNRM communities to address specific climate change problems in their areas in order to increase their resilience to the impacts of climate change and thereby secure their livelihoods, Shifeta said.

Therefore, through this grant facility, he noted, the government envisages to reach a total of 76,000 beneficiaries broken down as 15,000 direct and 61,000 indirect beneficiaries in all communal areas of Namibia where conservancies and community forests occur.

During this time, he stressed, the eligible CBNRM organisations are expected to develop project proposals strictly in accordance with the templates and guidelines provided by the EIF.

He said such proposals must be submitted to the EIF, the administrator of the grant facility, in the prescribed manner on or before the closing date.

Shifeta added the period starts on August 3 and will run until November 3 this year.